The Warrior (29 page)

“Ye always said that’s what ye were waiting for,” Alex said. “Of course, we think
ye were just stalling.”

“You’re right,” Connor said. “’Tis time for me to take a wife.”

Ilysa’s vision went dark, and she gripped the edge of the table to keep from falling.
Concentrating to keep her feet under her, she sidestepped along the table. When she
reached the end of it, she turned around and half fell onto the bench that was beside
it against the wall.

From the long silence that followed Connor’s announcement, the men were as surprised
by it as she was.

“We prodded the bull by taking Trotternish Castle. Alastair MacLeod could strike back
at us at any time,” Connor said. “The sooner I make a marriage alliance, the better.”

Soon?
Ilysa took deep breaths trying to calm herself. What was wrong with her? She had
known Connor would wed eventually.

“God knows, ye need a woman,” Alex said. “How long has it been?”

When the others began making ribald remarks, Ilysa knew they had forgotten her completely
and was grateful for it. Connor’s apparent celibacy since becoming chieftain had been
the subject of a good deal of speculation and gossip. The men of the castle seemed
almost as amazed by the chieftain’s failure to take any lass to his bed as the women
were disappointed.

The distance to the door suddenly seemed too far. As soon as Ilysa could trust herself
to walk, she forced herself to get to her feet. She crossed the floor with her head
down and bit her lip hard to keep from weeping.

Where authors give you the inside scoop!

Dear Reader,

I’ve been startled, as well as delighted, by all the pos­itiv
e c
omments I’ve received regarding the deep male
friendship—the “bro-mance”—among my four heroes in the Return of the Highlanders series.
If my portrayal of male camaraderie rings true at all, I must give some credit to
my younger brother, who always had a gang of close friends running in and out of our
house. (This does
not
, however, excuse him for not calling me more often.)

Looking back, I admire how accepting and utterly at ease these boys were with each
other. On the other hand, I am amazed how they could spend so much time together and
not talk—or talk only very briefly—about trouble in their families, divorces, or other
important things going on in their lives. They were always either eating or having
adventures. To this bookish older sister, they seemed drawn to danger like magnets.
And I certainly never guessed that the boys who shot rubber bands at me from behind
the furniture and made obnoxious kissy noises from the bushes when I went out on dates
had anything
useful
to teach me.

Yet I’m sure that what I learned from them about how male friendships work helped
me create the bond among my heroes in the Return of the Highlanders. These four Highland
warriors have been close companions since they were wee bairns, have fought side by
side in every battle, and have saved each other’s lives many times over. Naturally,
they are in each others’ books.

Ever since Duncan MacDonald’s appearances in
The Guardian
and
The Sinner
, readers have been telling me how anxious they are for Duncan’s own book because
they want to see him find happiness at last. We all love a tortured hero, don’t we?
And if any man deserves a Happily Ever After, it’s Duncan. In truth, I feel guilty
for having made him wait.

Duncan, in THE WARRIOR (available now), is a man of few words, who is honorable, steadfast,
and devoted to duty. With no father to claim him, he’s worked tirelessly to earn the
respect of his clan through his unmatched fighting skills. His only defeat was seven
years ago, when he fell hard for his chieftain’s beautiful, black-haired daughter,
a lass far beyond his reach.

He never expected to keep Moira’s love past that magical summer before she wed. Yet
he accepts that his feelings for her will never change, and he gets on with his duties.
When he and his friends return to the Isle of Skye after years spent fighting in France,
every stone of his clan’s stronghold still reminds him of her.

Moira’s brother, who is Duncan’s best friend and now chieftain, is aware that Duncan
loves her, though they never speak of it. (Thanks to my brother and his friends, I
do know it’s possible for them to not talk about this for seven years.) When the chieftain
hears that Moira may be in danger, he turns to the man he trusts most.

The intervening years have not made Moira trusting nor forgiving, and the sparks fly
when this stubborn pair reunites. After the untimely death of her abusive husband,
these star-crossed lovers must survive one dangerous adven
ture after another. They will find it even more daunting to trust each other and face
the hard truths about what happened seven years ago.

I hope you enjoy the romance between this Highland warrior and his long-lost love—and
that my affection for the troublesome boys who grow up to be the kind of men we adore
shines through in the bro-mance.

I love to hear from readers! You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and my website,
www.MargaretMallory.com
.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever wished you could step into someone else’s life? Leave behind your own
past with its problems and become someone entirely different?

I’m pretty sure everyone has felt that way at times. When you think about it, the
tale of Cinderella is such a story at its essence.

When I was in college, I saw a film called
The Return of Martin Guerre,
starring the great French actor Gérard Depardieu. It was actually based on true events
in medieval France. A man has gone off to war but then stays gone for over a decade,
essentially abandoning his wife. One day, though, he does return. The good news is
that, whereas the guy had previously been a heartless jerk, now he is caring and kind.
The wife takes him back, and they are happy. The bad news is that eventually it is
discovered that the man is not who he claims to be. He is an impostor.

Ever since I saw that movie, I have loved stories with this theme. One thing I’ve
noticed is that so often in these tales, the impostor is actually a better human being
than the person he or she is pretending to be. In the case of
Martin Guerre
, Gérard’s character
wants
the life and the responsibilities the other man has intentionally left behind. The
movie was remade in America as
Sommersby,
starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster. Richard Gere’s character grows and
becomes
a better man over the course of the events in the film. He does more for the family
and community than the real Sommersby ever would have done.

Please note that a sad ending is not necessarily required! There are lighthearted
versions of this tale as well. Remember
While You Were Sleeping,
a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock? Once again, she was a better person than
the woman she was pretending to be, and she was certainly too good for her fiancé,
the shallow man she thought she was in love with. In the end, her decency and kindness
won over everyone in the family. They were all better off because she had come into
their lives, even though she had initially been untruthful about who she was. And—what’s
most important for fans of romance!—true love won out. While Sandra had initially
been starry eyed over her supposed fiancé, she came to realize that it was actually
his brother who was the right man for her.

The idea for AN HEIRESS AT HEART grew out of my love for these stories about someone
stepping into another person’s shoes. Lizzie Poole decides to take on another person’s
identity: that of her half-sister, Ria, whom she had no idea existed until they found
each other through an extra­ordinary chain of events.

Lizzie is succeeding in her role as Ria Thornborough Somerville, a woman who has just
been widowed—until she falls in love with Geoffrey Somerville, the dead hu
sba
nd’s brother. And aside from the fact that it would have been awkward enough to explain
how you had suddenly fallen in love with your brother-in-law, in England at that time
it was actually illegal: The laws at that time prevented people from marrying their
dead spouse’s sibling. So Lizzie is left in a quandary: She must either admit the
truth of her identity, or forever deny her love for Geoffrey.

In a cute movie called
Monte Carlo,
a poor girl from Texas (played by Selena Gomez) impersonates a rich and snobbish
Englishwoman. During her week in that woman’s (high-priced, designer) shoes, she actually
ends up helping to make the world just a bit better of a place—more so than the selfish
rich girl ever would have done. She finds a purpose in life and—bonus!—true love as
well.

Maybe I’m so fascinated by these stories because of the lovely irony that, in the
end, each character actually discovers their
true
self. They find more noble aspects of themselves than they ever realized existed.
They discover that who they
are
is better than anyone they could
pretend
to be. They learn to rise up to their own best natures rather than to simply be an
imitation of someone else.

As the popular saying goes, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”

Dear Reader,

I’m often asked if the fictional island of Mimosa Key, home to beautiful Barefoot
Bay, is based on a real place. Indeed, it is. Although the barrier island is loosely
modeled after Sanibel or Captiva, the setting was really inspired by a serene, desolate,
undiscovered gem called Bonita Beach that sits between Naples and Fort Myers on the
Gulf of Mexico.

On this wide, white strip of waterfront property, I spent some of the most glorious,
relaxing, deliciously happy days of my life. My parents retired to Bonita and lived
in a small house directly on the Gulf. On any long weekend when I could get away,
I headed to that beach to spend time in paradise with two of my very favorite people.

The days were sunny and sandy, but the best part of the beach life were the early
evening chats on the screened-in porch with my dad, watching heartbreakingly beautiful
sunsets, sipping cocktails until the blue moon rose to turn the water to diamonds
on black velvet. All the while, I soaked up my father’s rich memories of a life well
lived. And, I’m sorry to say, a life that ended too soon. My last trip to Bonita was
little more than a vigil at his hospital bed, joined by all my siblings who flew in
from around the country to share the agony of losing the man we called “the Chief.”

My mother left the beach house almost immediately to live with us in Miami, and more
than twenty years passed before I could bear to make the drive across the state to
Bonita. I thought it would hurt too much to see “Daddy’s beach.”

But just before I started writing the Barefoot Bay series, I had the opportunity to
speak to a group of writers in that area of Florida, and I decided a trip to the very
setting of my stories would be good research—and quite cathartic.

Imagine my dismay when I arrived at the beach and it was no longer desolate or undiscovered.
The rarefied real estate had transformed in two decades, most of the bungalows replaced
by mansions. I didn’t have the address, but doubted I could find my parents’ house
anyway; it couldn’t have escaped the bulldozers and high-end developers.

So I walked the beach, mourning life’s losses, when suddenly I slowed in front of
one of the few modest houses left, so small I almost missed it, tucked between two
four-story monsters.

The siding had been repainted, the roof reshingled, and the windows replaced after
years of exposure to the salt air. But I recognized the screen-covered porch, and
I could practically hear the hearty sound of my dad’s laughter.

I waited for a punch of pain, the old grief that sometimes twists my heart when I
let myself really think about how young I was when I lost such a fantastic father.
But, guess what? There was no pain. Only relief that the house where he’d been so
happily retired still stood, and gratitude that I’d been blessed to have had him as
my dad.

And like he had in life, my father inspired me once again. For one thing, despite
the resort story line I had planned for the Barefoot Bay books, I made a promise to
keep my fictional beach more pristine and pure than the real one. I also promised
myself that at least one of the books that I’d set on “Daddy’s beach” would explore
the poignant, precious, incomparable love between a father and a daughter.

That book is BAREFOOT IN THE RAIN. The novel is, first and foremost, a reunion romance,
telling the story of Jocelyn and Will, two star-crossed teenagers who find their way
back to each other after almost fifteen years of separation. But there’s another “love”
story on the pages of BAREFOOT IN THE RAIN, and that’s the one that brought out the
tissues a few times while I was writing the book.